An observational study was conducted to validate the food atlas. Fifty college students from Nanjing Medical University, aged 20–22 years old, were invited to participate. The project was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of Nanjing Medical University (Protocol # 33; 2014/2015). Oral and written informed consent were obtained from each participant.
After selecting 10 types of food with Chinese characteristics, a meal was prepared according to the common processing and cooking methods. The investigators were responsible for weighing and calculating the raw food. The main ingredients included rice, tomato, celery, mushroom, rape (scientific name: Brassica napus L.; Chinese name: you cai; a green leafy vegetable), pork, crucian carp (scientific name: Carassius auratus; Chinese name: ji yu; one of the most common freshwater fish in China), egg, orange and banana. The investigators put the food in bowls or plates, and participants estimated the weight of the main ingredients. Then, the investigators put the bowl or plate containing the food on the background of vertical and horizontal coordinates calibrated in units of length (scale with 1 cm × 1 cm), next to the common objects known in daily life (a 355‐mL aluminum can and a piece of paper‐packed gum). The participants then estimated the weight of the main ingredients again according to the pictures of the relevant ingredients in the auxiliary reference food atlas. Each person estimated the weight of a food twice, with and without the use of the auxiliary reference food atlas. The differences between the estimated weight and the actual weight were then calculated and compared in the subsequent analysis of the data.
After selecting 10 types of food with Chinese characteristics, a meal was prepared according to the common processing and cooking methods. The investigators were responsible for weighing and calculating the raw food. The main ingredients included rice, tomato, celery, mushroom, rape (scientific name: Brassica napus L.; Chinese name: you cai; a green leafy vegetable), pork, crucian carp (scientific name: Carassius auratus; Chinese name: ji yu; one of the most common freshwater fish in China), egg, orange and banana. The investigators put the food in bowls or plates, and participants estimated the weight of the main ingredients. Then, the investigators put the bowl or plate containing the food on the background of vertical and horizontal coordinates calibrated in units of length (scale with 1 cm × 1 cm), next to the common objects known in daily life (a 355‐mL aluminum can and a piece of paper‐packed gum). The participants then estimated the weight of the main ingredients again according to the pictures of the relevant ingredients in the auxiliary reference food atlas. Each person estimated the weight of a food twice, with and without the use of the auxiliary reference food atlas. The differences between the estimated weight and the actual weight were then calculated and compared in the subsequent analysis of the data.
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